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Modifying
This article is about changing the files that make up the games, in order to change the game content (vehicles, weapons and just about anything else). with rockets and Miniguns at the Pelabuhan Saudagar harbor.]] Legal notice *Modifying the game probably violates the end-user license agreement of your game. *Most modifications require the installation of third party software. **There's no way to be sure if the files you download and/or install will work at all, or if they will turn out to be a computer virus. *Proceed at your own risk. **The Just Cause Wiki will not take any responsibilty for any damage to your game; your gaming device, or any legal action that might be taken against you as a result of any end-user license agreement violation. **The content of this article has not been verified by anyone who could take responsibilty for damage to your game, or gaming device. *Definitions for the purposes of this notice. **"Modifying the game" is hereby defined as (but not limited to) the following: ***Changing and/or replacing any of the files that make up the game. ***Inserting any files, or code into the games file directory. **"Third party software" is hereby defined as files (or code) that was made by someone other than the company that made the game. **"Gaming device" is hereby defined as any electronic equipment that may be needed to play the game. Examples include and are not limited to: PC; Xbox and PS3. Purpose and mod types It's not that the game wouldn't be fun as they are, but people can always think of ways to improve things. Some improvements might be considered fun by some and terrible by others, so it's all a matter of taste. Some examples of the most common mods (JC2): *Black Market mods are very commonly used. **They change the prices of things (usually to $0). **Let one "buy" (spawn) almost any vehicle that can be seen in the game. **Shut up Tom Sheldon. *Vehicle weapons. It's possible to add any of the existing kind of Miniguns and helicopter rocket-launchers to any vehicle. **One example is a mod that has added multiple of both to the Pocumtuck Nomad (Agency RV). **Another example is a mod that has added multiple different weapons to the H-62 Quapaw transport helicopter to turn it into a heavy attack helicopter. *Vehicle statstics and handling. It's possible to make vehicles lighter/heavier, faster/slower, be able to drive up very steep hills (and walls), bullet proof, explosion proof and more. *Hand held weapons can also be made more powerful. *The Protec Grappler G3 can be improved so the cable would reach to several kilometers and so that the double-grapple cable would be unbreakable (to allow the towing of heavier objects). *The character model can be replaced to make Rico look different, or pretty much be a different person. *The game environment can be changed to add new islands and roads. This takes a very large amount of work, so large mods like that are relatively rare. *Gameplay can be changed to make the factions fight each-other and/or to make the Panau Military stop fighting you. It's also possible to make it so that the military only uses Happy Bubble Blasters. =Just Cause (1) Modding= Introduction It is disappointing that Eidos has not included any SDK for its community. However, there have been ways to extract their archives. This article documents as much JC-related modding as possible. Extracting Thanks to the MultiEx community and QuickBMS, extracting the *.ARC files has been made possible. First, locate the folder containing your game Archives. (Its named should be named Archives, for obvious reasons.) Create a new text (.txt) file in that folder, then paste the following code in it: for i = 1 < 0xFFFF get NSIZE long getdstring name nsize get offset long get size long if NSIZE 0 cleanexit endif log name offset size next i Save the file. Now download QuickBMS, and extract it to your Desktop. You may delete the src folder if you want. Double click on quickbms.exe, then for the first part, select the text file you created. For the next part, select one of the archives, from pc1.arc to pc4.arc. Then create another folder to save the extracted content to. Hit ok, then once it is finished, you have now extracted the content from the game! File Formats This is a list of the various file formats you will find within Just Cause. Remember that the asterisk (*) means that any name can take it's place. Think of it as a variable. Main article: File Extensions See also: Category: File Formats *.ARC This is an Archive. QuickBMS, along with the script included above, are able to open most of them. (Note that pc0.arc cannot be opened with the above script.) As a reference, these are the first 4 bytes (headers) in the 5 archive files normally included with Just Cause: In fact, pc0 is most likely un-openable due to its unusual header. That, or the header could be indicating a different file format, with which will need a new script. *.DDS Stands for Direct Draw Surface. These files are used with DirectX to apply textures to models. Paint.NET has a plugin if you are looking to convert these to a normal format. Main article: DirectDraw Surface *.BFSM Still an unknown acronym, these files appear to control how NPCs function. *.LOD Normally standing for Line Of Detail, these files could be the actual models, containing actual point-by-point info, as well as animations. Main article: Level Of Detail See Also A Xentax wiki page on Just Cause's ARC file format =Just Cause 2 Modding= Using "dropzone" In order to use these, you create a directory in the root of your game directory called dropzone. C:\Program Files\Just Cause 2\dropzone or C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\just cause 2\dropzone Any files placed inside the dropzone directory will override most game content. It is where your mod files should go while creating, tweaking, and testing them. Once the files are placed in there, you're good to go! From there, you can start making your own mods if you want to get that in depth. See Current Tools to get the latest and greatest tools and documentation of each. If you want to redistribute your mod, the easy way to create an .arc/.tab file set is to run the game, then look at the dropzone directory -- you will see seperate_files.arc and seperate_files.tab, simply copy those elsewhere and rename them appropriate. Be sure you only have your mod files that you want to include in seperate_files.arc / seperate_files.tab in the dropzone directory at the time, though. Note that the game removes those files when it exits so you need to copy them after the game has started up. Bin Editing Information These links include information on how to edit specific bin files. (using XML to change contents of course) *Vehicle Engine Modding (vdoll/mvdoll) How-To *How to mod vehicles *Converting mods from PC to 360 *How to mod the DLC See also *File Extensions *Per-mesh physics attributes *Small Archive *DirectDraw Surface *Avalanche Engine *Exported Entity *Vehicle Doll *Render Block Model *FMOD *Level Of Detail Category:Modding Category:Content Category:Gameplay Category:File Formats